Posted on 04/05/2005 8:34:29 AM PDT by Kokojmudd
By Michael Marizco ARIZONA DAILY STAR
NACO, SONORA – A Mexican military Humvee moves across the cow pasture; soldiers nod at federal agents in bright orange shirts roving by on ATVs. An hour later, a Sonora State Preventive Police truck moves through a sandy wash, the officers looking for migrants waiting to sneak across the border.
Across the barbed-wire border in Arizona early Monday, excitement grips Minuteman Project volunteers when they observe a group of six people moving north.
Dan Russell, 62, watches the group walking toward him. "They're getting closer," he says. "They could just be reporters." They are.
In the first few days of the Minuteman Project, volunteers have been slowing illegal immigration into the Naco area.They've accomplished that with the help of an unlikely ally: Mexico.
Eager to avoid confrontations between volunteers and its people, Mexico is sweeping the area south of the Minuteman Project clear of migrants.
Gov. Eduardo Bours Castelo has placed 44 members of the new state police force across the border at La Morita, a cattle ranch that leads directly to the border south of Bisbee, said Diego Padilla the governor's Arizona representative.
The state police are working with Grupo Beta, Mexico's migrant protection force, which is plucking migrants out of the desert and depositing them in nearby Agua Prieta, where they are encouraged to wait before trying to cross.
"We are very crude with them; we tell them they may be shot, that there's rancheros out to stop them and hurt them," said Enrique Enriques Palafox, a Grupo Beta commander in Agua Prieta. The point is to terrify the migrants from the area so they won't cross illegally and encounter Minuteman volunteers, he said.
Sunday, the coordinated efforts of the military, Grupo Beta, and the new police force pulled 22 groups of migrants out of the ranch, Palafox said. By Monday, only a handful of people had to be told to go somewhere else.
Even as the Minuteman Project brought national attention to Cochise County's border woes, volunteers had few encounters with illegal entrants. But their presence has brought Mexican law enforcement to this part of the border, and that has had the effect of slowing illegal immigration.
Organizer James Gilchrist said Sunday that volunteers had reported 118 illegal entrants to the U.S. Border Patrol. There is no way to confirm that, because the agency's Tucson Sector says it doesn't keep track of Minuteman callers separately from normal calls from citizens about illegal border crossers.
Since Friday, when the protest started, there have been 78 citizen call-ins leading to the apprehension of 162 people, said Border Patrol spokesman Andy Adame.
What Minuteman volunteers have succeeded in doing is setting off false alarms by tripping ground sensors on the border, he said.
"We're having to work around them instead of concentrating on the actual border where we need to work," Adame said.
The number of illegal entrant apprehensions at the Naco station has dropped.
U.S. and Mexican officials say it's because of Mexico's efforts.
Minuteman organizers say otherwise. "We're having an impact," Gilchrist said Sunday.
● Contact reporter Michael Marizco at 573-4213 or at mmarizco@azstarnet.com.
"Of course there are illegals in Michigan. You are there aren't you?"
What does my status have to do with anything?
Sure. Someone on your side is going to have to make up some theory to keep the masses pumped up and contributing money to ALIPAC. It's not unlike the Maxine Water's rumor that the CIA spread crack through african-american neighborhoods. It makes good reading, but does anyone take it seriously?
Thanks for reminding me to make my contribution!!!
Uhhh Right, and all the Mexicans who can't speak English overtaking my hometown are all their legally.
Go to Matthews NC and tell me there is not an immigration problem.
You are the one with an Agenda.
Because your posted responses completely ignore facts. Hospitals, welfare payments, public schools are flooded with illegal aliens...especially in the southwest. How did they get here?
Aren't you the person who was related or worked for Rush?
DUmmie math
I'm in a tiny minority but that just proves that everyone else is wrong. LOL
Well, we wanted the federal government to step up and act on this issue.
Next time, let's specify WHICH federal government.
As we all know, normal operations was allowing millions of illegal migrants from crossing the border. If the minuteman project is upsetting normal operations, then they should keep at it. Border crossings are down!
Yes, but keep the Pubs in power, just throw out the fake conservatives (old-time politicians).
'tarians don't like to admit it, but splitting the conservative vote can elect Dims. Why do you think the Dims went after the Green/Nader alliance?
Get the pubs moving in the right direction at the local primaries.
Dead Corpse made a point about the message from Mexican authorities to the illegals. Rather than answer it, you sidestep it and change the subject. I'd really like to get your reaction to Dead Corpse's point.
Sure. Someone on your side is going to have to make up some theory to keep the masses pumped up and contributing money to ALIPAC. It's not unlike the Maxine Water's rumor that the CIA spread crack through african-american neighborhoods. It makes good reading, but does anyone take it seriously?
Ya know ignorance can be cured but stupid goes clear to the bone. What wall did this guy fall off of.
No just the drug dealers going to Detroit alone would probably account for that many.
Can you provide some source info to backup your claim?
Hi there.
*I* am from Michigan, and until recently, I lived in farm-country..
There were lots of Mexicans working some of the bigger farms and orchards.
I know of one place that had HUGE tracts of land, and they had trailers for their workers to live. Their kids went to the same schools my daughter did.
Now I do not know how many of these Mexicans were here legally, but I suspect some of them were indeed illegals.
Politicians just hate it when they get embarrassed.
It interferes with their plans for reelection and digging deeper at the public trough.
Of course, all the estimates are even HIGHER now with Jorge Arbusto running cover for them. Current numbers are upwards of 15-20 million with another million annual.
He's just grasping at straws. Granted the Detroit Tigers played an awesome game yesterday but I doubt many Canadians swam the Detroit river to get there.
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